face, drawn as much with the pain of others as with its own weariness.  His hair stood up in long tufts, his eyes had black circles under them.  He wore neither coat nor waistcoat, and his regimental trousers were tied round the waist by a bit of rope.  On the sleeve of his collarless shirt were three dark dry splashes; he noticed them as he raised his arm to put on his pith helmet.  The words did not reach his lips, but his heart cried out within him for a boy of the 32nd.

The ayah caught up her brass cooking-pot and followed him.  Since the doctor-sahib was to pay, the doctor-sahib would arrange that good measure should be given in the matter of the milk.  And upon second thought the doctor-sahib decided that precautions were necessary.  He told the man with the goat, therefore, that when the ayah received two pounds of milk she would pay him the five rupees.  As he put the money into Tooni’s hand she stayed him gently.

‘We are to go without, beyond the walls, to the ghat?’ she asked in her own tongue.

‘Yes,’ said the doctor, ‘in two hours.  I have spoken.’

‘Hazur![1] the Nana Sahib—­’

[1] ‘Honoured one.’

’The Nana Sahib has written it.  Bus!’[1] the doctor replied impatiently.  Put the memsahib into her clothes.  Pack everything there is, and hasten.  Do you understand, foolish one?’

[1] ‘Enough.’

’Very good said the ayah submissively, and watched the doctor out of sight.  Then she insisted—­holding the rupees, she could insist—­ that the goat-keeper should bring his goat into the hut to milk it; there was more safety, Tooni thought, in the hut.  While he milked it Tooni sat upon the ground, hugging her knees, and thought.

The memsahib had said nothing all this time, had known nothing.  For two days the memsahib had been, as Tooni would have said, without sense—­had lain on the bed in the corner quietly staring at the wall, where the looking-glass hung, making no sign except when she heard the Nana Sahib’s guns.  Then she sat up straight, and laughed very prettily and sweetly.  It was the salute, she thought in her fever; the Viceroy was coming; there would be all sorts of gay doings in the station.  When the shell exploded that tore up the wall of the hut, she asked Tooni for her new blue silk with the flounces, the one that had been just sent out from England, and her kid slippers with the rosettes.  Tooni, wiping away her helpless tears with the edge of her head covering, had said, ’Na, memsahib, na!’ and stroked the hot hand that pointed, and then the mistress had forgotten again.  As to the little pink baby, three days old, it blinked and throve and slept as if it had been born in its father’s house to luxury and rejoicing.

Tooni questioned the goat-keeper; but he had seen three sahibs killed that morning, and was stupid with fear.  He did not even know of the Nana Sahib’s order that the English were to be allowed to go away in boats; and this was remarkable, because he lived in the bazar outside, and in the bazar people generally know what is going to happen long before the sahibs who live in the tall white houses do.  Tooni had only her own reflections.